Endless Cycle

In apparent retaliation for two more shooting deaths of black men by police, an "ambush-style" attack at a Dallas protest killed five officers and wounded seven.

Is this what the second amendment is for? They shoot you and so you shoot them? How do more guns help when trained officers can't stop an attack? But, of course, now is not the time to talk about regulation. Heather Digby Parton:

[T]he NRA had nothing to say about police officers killing black citizens who were legally carrying guns this week. Their minions in the GOP have refused to do anything about the ongoing gun violence after mentally ill people shot up college campuses and movie theaters and elementary schools and night clubs. Thousands of children dying in gun accidents every year doesn’t move them. They cannot even bring themselves to regulate the semi-automatic weapons which are responsible for at least 65 out of 81 mass shootings since 1982.

So I’m not going to suggest that a mass shooting of [12] police officers will move them to end the slaughter either. They’ll just say the police need more and better guns. That’s their answer for everything. And we’ll all adjust and go on until the next one and the one after that. I have no idea what it will take to break this cycle.

Update (July 10):  Leonard Pitts considers the "madness" of these recent events.

There is a sickness afoot in our country, my friends, a putrefaction of the soul, a rottenness in the spirit. Consider our politics. Consider the way we talk about one another — and to one another. Consider those two dead black men. Consider those five massacred cops.

Deny it if you can. I sure can’t. Something is wrong with us. And I don’t mind telling you that I fear for my country.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article88403142.html#storylink=cp